First directed union certification in Alberta in three decades

[speedog]

My how times have changed, actually I'm kind of surprised that Alberta's NDP government took this long to do such a thing.

I would like to know what "minor tardiness" is, how often, how tardy. I have difficulty condoning poor behaviour and that's what I view as a downside here but then on the flip side it does sound like there's more to the story. Never the less, unions in Alberta are all most likely having a bit of a celebration this morning with this news.

From today's Calgary Herald...

More labour-friendly legislation from the NDP government led to an April 20 Alberta Labour Relations Board decision that reinstated worker Aaron Doncaster and ordered the union be certified at the Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites in the downtown East Village, said Rob Hellenius, spokesman for UFCW Local 401.

It’s a directed certification that hasn’t happened in the province in three decades and should have wider ramifications, he said.

“There are a lot of people who have been watch how the board was going to interpret this legislation and it’s clear the board has made a fairly strong pronouncement on dismissal,” said Hellenius.

The union said favouritism, improper overtime and tip calculations, mistreatment and a general lack of respect for staff led to a campaign to unionize last summer.

Minor tardiness on political activist Doncaster’s work record was used to fire him last year, a tactic the union said was meant to deter others from their organizing activities.

“It’s clearly union-busting and the effect of that is almost always the campaign dies on the vine,” he said.

“The campaign was running quick and hot, then there was a termination.”

But the board’s ruling eases that chilling effect and “it’s going to open up the world to these workers.”

Said Doncaster in a statement: “It feels like a new day for working Albertans … this is the happiest day of my life!”

The province’s Fair and Family-Friendly Workplace Act that took effect last year returned the power to order remedial certification back to the labour board, says the union.

That move brings Alberta closer to labour laws in provinces like B.C. and Ontario, said UFCW President Doug O’Halloran.

“We understand the Act was getting somewhere closer to a balance, getting closer to where other provinces are,” he said.

Up to 70 employees at the hotel whose jobs cover everything except office or clerical workers are now certified with the union, said Hellenius.

Hilton Hotels and Resorts didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But critics of the NDP government’s Bill 17 labour legislation contend it’s anti-business, that employers weren’t properly consulted on it and erodes the ability to have a secret ballot in choosing union representation.

The union says in the next month it’ll issue a notice to bargain for a first collective agreement for its Hilton workers.

[ExtraSlow]

It's hard to know how to feel about this. I've never been a union member and never felt that being in a union would benefit me. However I've worked at places with unionized workers, and those workers really did need the protection of the union because they wouldn't have been able to advocate for themselves effectively.

[JRSC00LUDE]

Disgusting. Easy enough to add that hotel to the do not use list though. Government should stay out of business.

Unions are just as bad a cancer as bad employers are.

[Zhariak]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if employees form a union, company can't fire employees, can't they fire the entire union?

I know this is extreme and hence why it's not done often (I think someone told me it's only ever happened in Canada once or something, correct me if I'm wrong). But we need companies to start doing this to set examples.

[ExtraSlow]

I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

[revelations]

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but if employees form a union, company can't fire employees, can't they fire the entire union?

I know this is extreme and hence why it's not done often (I think someone told me it's only ever happened in Canada once or something, correct me if I'm wrong). But we need companies to start doing this to set examples.

Walmart in QC - the workers threatened to unionize, the store said you can unionize all you want but no more store .... workers unionized and the store left.

A lot of QC has a very union/ entitled attitude - not surprising they tried this and had their asses handed over,

EDIT ...... So then the fired workers decided that, even though they weren't officially certified, they were entitled to MORE than severance claim.

The SC ruled that Walmart, after 15 years, owed them MORE money ..... LOL ....

[phreezee]

Hilton can shutdown and re-open under another sub-brand.

[CompletelyNumb]

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but if employees form a union, company can't fire employees, can't they fire the entire union?

I know this is extreme and hence why it's not done often (I think someone told me it's only ever happened in Canada once or something, correct me if I'm wrong). But we need companies to start doing this to set examples.

It happened at an oil field services company in Alberta many years ago. Workers were going to vote to unionize. Parent company closed the shop down. Never heard of any legal fallout for it.

[Zhariak]

Ya, but again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was completely legal and allowed for a company to terminate the entire union as a whole, as long as they didn't selectively choose who to fire individually?

I'm really wishing I would have remembered the examples that I was told about. But it went along the lines that the workers unionized, got crazy, and so the company fired the entire union as a whole. I'm going to do some googling to see if I can get to the bottom of this....

I just remembered after hearing about those examples, asking how it's legal for them to do this only to be told it is legal, it's just a pain in the ass for the employed to terminate the entire workforce and replace/retrain.

[ZenOps]

Under a socialist system you must at the absolutely very least pretend to be working and productive. It does not really matter if you aren't, maybe its just a matter of shuffling papers from point A to point B and then back again, or digging a hole by day only to fill it at night.

Send a bike courier with a "do not open" signed raw egg to your coworkers on the other side of downtown, and then send a different courier to do the same. Do it twice every week, and have bets to see if any of them arrive without cracking. That is the social system, keep people employed with *something* if you can't figure out how to keep people employed otherwise (IMO) You will know when the current economic model is not working for a particular generation, when the eggs *always* arrive cracked.

But you must at least have the outward appearance of being content and happy as well as on time. Time is money. The only system where Time is not money is a pure capitalist system where if I spend one hour creating a widget that is used by a billion people (like a cellphone, which is more common than a toilet in India) then time and effort put into should be disproportionate to the billions of dollars I'd be swimming in.

BTW: Billion dollar invention: Cellphone that cleans itself, because people chose cellphones over toilets. Figure it out peeps (and don't forget to give me a 0.5% cut for even mentioning it)

[speedog]

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Ya, but again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was completely legal and allowed for a company to terminate the entire union as a whole, as long as they didn't selectively choose who to fire individually?

I'm really wishing I would have remembered the examples that I was told about. But it went along the lines that the workers unionized, got crazy, and so the company fired the entire union as a whole. I'm going to do some googling to see if I can get to the bottom of this....

I just remembered after hearing about those examples, asking how it's legal for them to do this only to be told it is legal, it's just a pain in the ass for the employed to terminate the entire workforce and replace/retrain.

A company can not fire a union because the union isn't working for the company.

Now there is decertification but that's another big messy ball of wax and officially decertification has to be initiated by unionized employees with no company involvement.

[Antonito]

If companies could just get rid of unions, why would unions have lasted longer than 5 minutes?

You might be thinking of when Reagan disbanded the air traffic controller union, but IIRC he got around the legalities by declaring it a matter of national security or something like that

[Zhariak]

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A company can not fire a union because the union isn't working for the company.

Now there is decertification but that's another big messy ball of wax and officially decertification has to be initiated by unionized employees with no company involvement.

As far as I knew, the whole point of forming a union, was so that once they created the union entity, employees could be fired as they belong to the union, and not the company. The union now worked for the company, hence all the structures and legal issues.

Again, that's how it was explained to me that in those examples, after the union formation (and in one case a strike), they just fired the union and hired private employees.

[ExtraSlow]

No, not in any way. No.

[ZenOps]

Does time make something more valuable? If I could make a 200 meter basketball shot in 5 minutes, its value would be less by my estimation. What actually got done, would be the exact same, but time adds drama - and people love drama.

[speedog]

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As far as I knew, the whole point of forming a union, was so that once they created the union entity, employees could be fired as they belong to the union, and not the company. The union now worked for the company, hence all the structures and legal issues.

Again, that's how it was explained to me that in those examples, after the union formation (and in one case a strike), they just fired the union and hired private employees.

What you know is not correct by any means, the only people a union employs are usually secretarial staff do do such work in the union's office plus the often elected higher union positions (President, vice president, treasurer, business agents).